Forms: 5 flyare, 6 Sc. fliear, 9 dial. fleer, 5– flier, 6– flyer. [f. FLY v.1 + -ER1. The forms flyer, flier are both in good mod. use; in our recent quots. flyer is more common, notwithstanding the analogy of crier, drier, trier.]
1. A living thing (e.g., a bird or insect) that propels itself with wings; often preceded by some qualifying adj., as high, etc.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 167/1. Flyare, volator.
1556. J. Heywood, Spider & F., lx. 35.
| He pertisipateth, with both these in this wise, | |
| A creper with spiders, and a flier with flise. |
1686. W. de Britaine, Hum. Prud., vi. 27. Never magnify your self or boast of your great Actions, (that’s Pedantry) and as in Falconry, so take it for a Truth, That those of the weakest Wing, are commonly the highest Flyers: Rest satisfied to do, and leave it to others to talk of it.
1729. Law, Serious C., xi. 168. What can you conceive more silly and extravagant, than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly?… Where-ever you see an ambitious man, there you see this vain and senseless flyer.
1775. White, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 260. In a day or two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies.
1816. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1828), II. xxiii. 355. There are three classes of fliers in this order, the form of whose bodies, as well as the shape and circumstances of their wings, is different.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., i. (1873), 17. Birds breeding on precipices, and good fliers, are unlikely to be exterminated.
fig. 1601. Cornwallyes, Ess., x. I am now come from conuersing with Princes, great spirits, and high fliers, Historie hath possessed me last, a knowledge meetest for vs.
1667. Pepys, Diary, 27 Feb. He is not so high a flyer as Mr. Chichley and others, but loves the King better than any of them, and to better purpose.
b. Something that flies or is carried by the air. † (a) A volatile spirit (obs.). (b) The petals of hops when they become detached.
1471. Ripley, Comp. Alch., Ep. Edw. IV., xxix. in Ashm. (1652), 116.
| And so to the Elixer of spirits you must come: for why | |
| Till the sonne of the fixed by the sonne of the fixer be ouergone, | |
| Elixer of bodies, named it is onely, | |
| And this found secret poynt, deceaueth manie one. |
1881. Whitehead, Hops, ii. 14. They [hops] soon ‘go off,’ and the petals of the flower cones become disintegrated, or ‘flyers’ in the pickers’ parlance.
2. One who or that which moves with exceptional speed, e.g., a fish, horse, ship, etc.
1795. Nelson, in Nicolas, Disp. (1845), II. 50. Yesterday we got sight of the French Fleet; our flyers were able to get near them, but not nearer than half gun-shot.
1861. Whyte-Melville, Mkt. Harborough, x. (ed. 12), 76. Grooms with led horses are overtaken by their masters, and we recognize many a well-known flyer and honest servant’s face.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, lx. (1880), 314. He [a fish] was a regular flier, and was more out of the water than in. Plunging and leaping from the water as dolphins are always depicted as doing, particularly on signboards, he took out clear, without stopping for a second, over one hundred yards of line.
1887. Tuer & Fagan, 1st Year Silken Reign, vii. 129. The ‘Wonder,’ Shrewsbury and London coach, achieved for itself an enviable reputation as a ‘flyer’ of the first order, and seemed determined not to be outdone by its formidable adversary of the iron-road without a struggle.
3. Applied to mechanical contrivances that have a quick revolution.
a. An appliance for regulating the motion of a roasting-jack.
1674. N. Fairfax, A Treatise of the Bulk and Selvedge of the World, 125. A Jack, by being only wown up, without thripping the balance or flyer.
1709. Swift, Baucis & Philemon, 71.
| The Flyer, though’t had leaden Feet, | |
| Turn’d round so quick, you scarce could see it. |
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), XVI. 95. He leaves you spinning like the flyer of a jack.
† b. One of the vanes used in an early form of ship’s log. Obs. Cf. FLY sb.2 5 h.
1729. H. De Saumarez, in Phil. Trans., XXXVI. 47. The four Iron Fins, or Flyers…. These Flyers are so contrived as to have full Play in any Motion of the Boat.
† c. = FLY-WHEEL. Obs.
1781. Watt, Patent, in Muirhead, Mech. Invent. Watt, III. 52. In order that the said motion may be more regular, I fix to or upon the shaft or axis F M L, or to or upon some other wheel or shaft to which it gives motion, a heavy wheel or flyer, to receive and continue the motion communicated to it by the primary movement.
d. A sail of a windmill; also pl. ‘the fan-wheel on the vane of a windmill cap which rotates the latter as the wind veers’ (Knight).
1790. Mrs. A. Wheeler, Westmld. Dial. (1821), 97. Paur man wur ath fleers, en raund it went.
a. 1848. Mrs. Marcet, Seasons (ed. 5), IV. ii. 35. Oh, that mill with the great fliers, that the wind pushes round?
e. That part of a spinning machine which twists the thread as it conducts it to and winds it upon the bobbin. Cf. FLY sb.2 5 f.
1831. G. R. Porter, Silk Manuf., 201–2. At each extremity of the flyer an eye is formed…. The thread from the bobbin is passed through both these eyes.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 356/2. The flyer … winds it upon the bobbin.
f. The winder of a balling machine.
1869. J. H. Webster, in Eng. Mech., 31 Dec., 387/2. The ‘flyer’ … winds the string on to the mandrel.
4. In various uses, related to senses of the vb.
† a. pl. ? The fringe or tassels of a curtain. Obs.
1577. Wills & Inv. N. C. (Surtees, 1836), 414. Iij payer of courtings withe the flyers of saye. Ibid. (1580), One payer of say hingers with fleers.
b. pl. Steps forming a straight flight; opposed to winders.
1667. Primatt, City & C. Build., 66. Flyers and winders, which are plain, and triangular Steps without any Landing place.
1703. T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 248. Straight Stairs … always fly, and never Wind, and therefore are by some call’d Flyers.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 329/2. Straight stairs are called flyers.
c. Printing. (See quot.) Also pl.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., I. 895/2. Flyer.… 4. (Printing.) A vibratory rod with fingers which take the sheet of paper from the tapes and carry it to the delivery-table, the sheet resting flatly against the flyer-fingers by the resistance of the air.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIII. 706.
d. U.S. A small handbill or fly-sheet.
1889. Lit. World (U. S.), XX. 21 Dec., 485/2. In one particular, at least, some of the English periodicals distance the American. That is, the device of inserting gaily-colored advertising fliers in the body of the magazine.
5. A flying jump or leap; a flight. In quot. fig.
1883. R. Grant White, W. Adams, 51. Haven’t we taken rather a flyer? What has all this to do with Mrs. Trollope, and New Orleans, and Cincinnatus, and Botany Bay?
b. Hence, U.S. ‘A speculative investment: applied to a purchase of stock by one not a regular buyer, in hope of immediate profit’ (Cent. Dict.).
1886. Pall Mall G., 26 Aug., 11/1. He … turned to the Wall-street news to see how much he had already made on his flyer.
1888. W. C. Brownell, The French Provincial Spirit, in New Princeton. Rev., V. May, 328. The temptation to take a flyer in the market does not assail the average citizen.
6. slang. (See quots.)
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Flyers, Shoes.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour (1861), II. 34. A ‘flyer,’ that is, a shoe soled without having been welted.
7. One who runs away; a fugitive; = FLEER. † Also, one who flies or shuns; an avoider of.
c. 1460. Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 308.
| Secundus Dæmon. Here is a bag fulle, lokys … | |
| Of flytars, of flyars, and renderars of reffys. |
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., III. 440.
| As hapnis oft ane vanter to be liear, | |
| And ane greit braggar to be fund a fliear. |
a. 1633. Lennard, trans. Charron’s Wisd., I. xxxvi. § 1 (1670), 111. Timon that hater and flyer of the company of men.
1648. Eikon Bas. (1662), 127. Now the Fliers from, and Forsakers of their Places, carry the Parliamentary power along with them.
1751. R. Paltock, P. Wilkins (1884), II. xxi. 254. Having given notice that no one should presume to rise till the flyers were on the graundee, and at such a distance, I then let the flyers know I should soon give fire.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xviii. 116–7. The loss was frightful, but, though Norman horsemen followed on the fliers, slaying and taking captives, yet the smallest number of those who fell that day were those who were slain by the sword.
